: wah wah.
: origami holiday tree! at my favorite place in the city!
:ffffound (here)

there just isn't a theme to this one.

9th grade.

10th grade.

14th grade.

sunday sneeze

things from the week i would have babbled to you about, had you been there when i got home to my cold, cold apartment. instead i'm just going to save them up at accost you with it all at once. bring a tissue.

:in the vein of day+theme+alliteration, i think i'm bringing fridayflash back. not that i was ever very good with it to begin with.

:thanks to the awesome people I intern for at fsg, and to the bookbench at the NY'er (not the blog, but a literal bench in the editorial section at the magazine in which books sent to the various editors are up for grabs), i am amassing a small library of free books, art magazines, and graphic novels... now if only i had the time to read them.

:proofreading machine--between the managing ed. department at fsg and freelancing for avalon, i've never felt so powerful with a freshly-sharpened color pencil.

:obama is giving weekly addresses via youtube.

:there are about 15 interns at fsg, and we like each other. our lively conference-room chats, however, prompted one of our editors to make a (joking) remark on our "four hour lunches." we have thus been inspired to plan a "Four Hour Dinner Party," and are considering making flyers for it to put up around the office. interns only.

:for some unknown reason, i can't stop thinking about this fiction piece from the NY'er.

:"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist." more here.

:Japan Winter Light show (here)









:fffound. (here)



















: COOL! especially when it shines... oh, directly into our windows at work. did i say shines? i meant goes berserk. in red and white.

: i'm a little in love with her


: amalia's 90's-tastic, girls-only, 22nd birthday: never been kissed, empire records, funfetti cake, and conversation centered around jtt, bath and body works lotion sets, dr. pepper lip smackers, glitter roll-on eye makeup, fan-fiction, etc.

: cold no more! i have a space-heater! her name is cleo.

:fffound (here)

make yourself happy. for less than $8.

trip to the cheese shop > fresh baguette + cheeses > homemade snacktime > sharp aged white cheddar and turkey sandwich > goat cheese and honey sandwich for dessert > spongebob squarepants >> best thursday afternoon in the history of ever.

ffffound: (here)

aniceideaeveryday.com/ ffffound.com

today marie showed me this website, which has really fun, well-executed images and projects. she found the website through this other website, an image-blog which is amazing and now another reason why i can't get anything done. (these pictures weren't digitally manipulated-- they were shot from below using plexiglass-plates.)

i haven't taken my contacts out for weeks

Probably a good portion of my blog posts consist of me talking about the state of this blog. They generally take the tone of apology, despair, or resolve (usually a combination of the three), combined with solipsistic (not a word, I am aware) guilt for the fact that I keep a blog at all. But my archaic stat counter tells me that even though I am no longer abroad and doing interesting things, a good 20-30 people still come here every week, and I like that I have a place where my scattered, neurotic self can attempt to update and mildly entertain the 10-15 close friends/family members that I know read this.

So there's my disclaimer for the following self-absorbed, obscenely meta post I am about to subject you to.

Lately this place has been dominated by the visual. Even so, there are still hundreds of photos backlogged in my camera, computer, and brain, waiting to emerge. This number pales in comparison, however, to the thoughts and ideas in my head which have yet to find articulation here or elsewhere.

While this semester began with the happy anticipation of a busy, productive schedule and triumphant New York return-- classes, two internships, apartment in Brooklyn, etc., it has since spiraled into a state of physical/mental burnout. This was compounded by/ caused by/ caused a state of intellectual and personal self-doubt, characterized by a paralysis of thought and the inability to find pleasure in things or to be productive or complete any real thoughts or actions. (The incoherence of that sentence is only indicative of what the past few months have been.) I'll admit that this state/cycle is nothing new in my life, and is caused in part by chemical imbalances which are beyond my control and the choices I make which are not.

Gladly, this funk is finally waning, and while I am still teetering on the fine line between defeat and new resolve, I have enough motivation and clarity of mind to write my resolutions here and hope that you hold me to them.

I truly love school and learning, and in four years have hardly ever missed a class or even a lecture. While I am enjoying my final year of undergraduate education, I have reached a point where classes, though invaluable, are also having a detrimental effect on the development of my brain. The strong desire I've always had to read, write, and create has suffered as trying to find a balance between learning and doing has rendered me immobile in both figurative and literal senses.

I have started planning out my life for when I return to New York in January after winter break in South Africa with this fear of immobility in mind. My goals now are these: to finish the last month of this semester with work that I am proud of. Then, to come back next semester and re-evaluate my use of time, making a concerted effort to learn, create, and also live a life not overwhelmed by those two pressures. This will hopefully be accomplished in part by taking two classes and one internship as opposed to three classes and two internships. The classes I'm choosing, too, are in a way a nice bridge between academic life and the real life I hope to enter soon-- a creative non-fiction writing course and a community-based course in which I'll teach English to adult-immigrants in New York.

What it all means: As difficult as this semester has been personally, I really have loved my internships at FSG and The New Yorker, as well as each of my classes. I still love this city, have grown even fonder of Brooklyn, have been making new friends, and making out like a bandit in regard to free books at both my jobs. There are changes that need to be made in order to keep my sanity, however, and the free time I'm working into my schedule for when I return will hopefully give me the physical and mental space to be more deliberate in what I choose to learn, read, and do. Along with that, I hope that I can also start/re-start using this blog as a space not only for updates and tidbits for friends/family, but also as a place to share my efforts in writing/photography/engaging with life and the world.

Given my interests and the way my mind works, it's hard not to think in terms of narrative. While doing so can be a little reductive, it helps a lot with perspective, which is what I seem to be constantly searching for in every place except myself. My own narrative (and the general outline of life of this blog) can be seen in various ways, the most simple being such: girl goes to New York, girl goes abroad, girl returns to New York, girl (like most girls and humans also) struggles with personal identity and grows in leaps and bounds along the way. There is also a narrative that looks like a list of cities, a series of plane and bus tickets which go between California, New York, South Africa, Paris, and dozens of places in between. There is a narrative written in the courses in my transcript, in the list of all the books I've ever read which I neurotically keep, in the thousands of photographs on my computer, in my daily planner, in my dozens of journals, in the structured lines of my resume. There is a narrative written in the various lengths of my hair, in the friends I've made, in the photos on my facebook account, in my ipod, in ticket stubs, in the bookmarks on my browser, in the boys I've encountered and loved, in the decorations on my wall.

I don't know if these narratives tell the same story: it seems both impossible that they can and impossible that they cannot. Separating them as such, it also seems impossible to put them all back together in any cohesive way. At most I can survey them and find complacency in knowing that I exist in them somewhere, my emotions and thoughts safely embedded in their mundane outward appearances. Whatever the case may be, and regardless of discussions about blogs or the internet or my generation, this is a space where I can actively create a narrative of my own to share with you. Thanks for being a part of it.

love and overly-important tones
talisa

she said sorry but i think you might be just projecting on to me

halloween pictures:

WE <3 HALLOWEEN

We made a cake.

But it would taste a lot sweeter if we were celebrating the defeat of Prop 8, too.

love in historic proportions,
talisa